My days in the forest began mixing into a cacophony of peace and danger. The little Zeraora with boundless and sparkling energy was my constant companion.
It's funny, how three weeks ago I was trying to write a thesis on the circuit boards of DC generators, and now I am trying to learn how to use Plasma Fists, taught by a Zeraora, a mythical Pokémon no less.
I wondered why Zeraora was so concerned when I couldn't learn Plasma Fists. I have no idea why, but I feel she is trying to make her child and me get stronger. She has been taking us out to the forest on mini-excursions to nearby wild Pokémon homes to fight them to grow our power.
Her goal became clearer to me when, the other day, she came to talk to me,
"Zera aaaa,"
"How do I want to get stronger?" I asked with a questioning look.
"Zera! Zera!", nodded the mother Zeraora.
"Zeraaa Zeraa Zera ORa ZeraOra," she went on and on, I honestly didn't understand what she was saying, but after spending some time with the Zeraora's I realized they don't talk much anything else but food and power. So, when the mother Zeraora talked to me, I could make sense of it using our previous interactions as an example.
It has been some time now, but recently I have started picking up on this thing, where, for some reason, I can understand what the young and playful Zeraora is trying to say to me, despite the words just being different permutations of 'Zeraora', but I feel like I can understand his feelings and emotions to a deeper level. I think the little Zeraora feels the same, too.
However, when it comes to his mother, I feel like every time she looks at me, she is looking at my very soul through my eyes. Anyways, the mother Zeraora's little speech, which I couldn't make heads or tails of, was coming to an end.
"Zeraaa Ora Ora Oraaa,"
"You do realize that I am not a Pokémon, don't you? I can't learn Pokémon attacks and abilities while I am a human."
"Zera Zera Zeraora?" she looked at me questioningly.
"How would I protect myself against wild Pokémon??".
That was true. If I ever had to defend myself against wild Pokémon, how would I? I am not even an average human at the moment. I am no more than twenty years old, trapped in my nine-year-old body, which is vastly underdeveloped compared to my previous self. How could I protect myself?
Moreover, even if life right now was blissful, I will have to move on from here. I want to see and explore the world, maybe become the champion of a region or two, like in the anime. But I will have to move on from here.
How will I be able to move on from here if I can't even get through the outskirts of the forest without an adult Zeraora by my side?
Then, I thought of something, martial arts from my world.
I remember my father forcing me to learn Karate when I was young for my self-defense. I was not interested at first, but I met a beautiful girl in the academy, and I kept at it to impress her. I also got into mixed martial arts because of her, but unfortunately, she remained just a crush, since I never really got the courage to ask her out.
Anyways, it had been quite some time since I practised martial arts, I am a bit rusty, but I am also young now. This time, I will be able to train my body even better than before, so why not train my body again? This time, I will not be making any mistakes.
I got up with my newfound path of gaining personal power.
I started training myself, making one of the hardwood trees my punching bag. It had been more than four or five years since I last practised the techniques, and I was also in a new body, but I found out that, despite being in a new body and being without practice for so long, although rusty, I still retained quite a few moves and techniques. All those techniques that were drilled into my muscles by the instructors started coming back to me.
As I tried to remember the warm-up exercises, I remembered the instructors making us run ten laps around the gymnasium to increase our stamina and blood flow. It was always the go-to warm-up exercise to scare off uninterested students in the first hour.
So, remembering that I started running around the maintenance building shaft, watching me run around, the little Zerarora quickly zipped around, catching up with me within seconds. Although I started running around in a medium space, I could see the little monster was not even trying, but still kept up with me.
Within minutes, I started feeling sluggish, my legs started feeling a lot heavier, and I was tiring up pretty quickly. I was not able to even make three complete laps, as I fell on the ground panting and puffing for air.
"Zeraa??"
The little Pokémon by my side looked curiously as if asking, "That's it?".
That hurt...
That hurt my pride badly. I got up with a new found rush of energy, and after taking two steps, I realized everything around me was going black. And, the last thing I remember is falling on the ground with a loud thump.
When I woke up, I saw the sun setting, so I must have been asleep for more than four hours at a minimum. The mother Zeraora came near me, looking worried.
After I assured her, I was fine. I started thinking back to what had happened.
"So, I guess running ten laps while being nine years old is tough, huh?!!"
The next day, I started running again, this time I was slow and trying to conserve as much energy as possible, taking a minute or two long breaks every lap to regain some of my will. And then, starting again, this went on for two hours, and I was finally able to make seven laps before passing out again.
The next morning, with newfound determination, I started running again. This time, I was able to hit eight laps before my legs finally gave up. Now, finally, that I was still not out cold, I decided to continue building my stamina and muscles.
I took a tree branch, sat down on the empty ground, and started drawing my master plan. I wrote down every exercise I could remember. Then, I started dividing my exercises to build up my stamina and my muscles slowly but surely.